


Sphinges

by viceindustrious



Category: Sherlock Holmes (2009)
Genre: M/M, Victorian, comedy of manners
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-24
Updated: 2011-03-24
Packaged: 2017-10-25 00:09:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/269452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viceindustrious/pseuds/viceindustrious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A picture of the beginning of Blackwood and Coward's relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sphinges

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Untitled](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/5112) by secret_smile. 



When Sir Thomas introduces himself, Coward keeps his contempt in check and manages not to flinch away from the dry, soft hand that shakes his own. Sir Thomas is a dead man, Coward thinks, one of those slow, sad pillars of the community who do not yet realize how little the skies will shake when they fall. He gives Coward vague promises of favour and invokes the name of power as readily as he would any spirit or demon.

What little power the Order possesses is as ephemeral as a spirit too. Coward realizes this after his very first meeting. There are important men in attendance. Important men at _play_. Their complacency outweighs their ambition. They are old, well fed with wealth and privilege.

Coward slips into place amongst their ranks, where he belongs by birthright. Dinner is held in the great hall beforehand, eight courses of rich, fine food. Coward eats sparingly, stroking the blade of his bread knife with his thumb. He drinks his coffee and guards his hunger and thinks of what work there is to be done.

-

He thinks he will use Henry Blackwood. Use him against his father, use him and then discard him, for what further purpose could the son of such a man serve?

It is Coward's mother who tells him the secret. His parents both were members of the order, before his father's condition required them to retire from public living lest their own scandal start circulating in whispers. Of course, the Coward family are better at keeping their secrets than Rotheram would ever have the wit for.

She smiles when she tells him, the pale pink of her lip colour stained darker in the creases of her mouth. His mother smells of Madonna lilies; she strokes her fingers through his hair, presses a kiss against his cheek and leaves her scent draped over his shoulders like a mantle.

-

Henry is a feral, lean creature and Coward is transfixed by the sight of his hands as he shuffles the cards, by the strong, noble set of his jaw, by the untidy tangle of his hair as he throws his head back to laugh. He is laughing amidst a circle of drunkards in a dark and noisy public house, the floorboards stained with beer and other less savoury things. He is laughing as though he too is drunk, yet Coward can see from his own little corner of the room, that he is not. Henry Blackwood is entirely sober and his eyes are hard and brilliant and alight with calculation as he fleeces these men of the money in their pockets and they hand it over not only willingly, but with adoration.

This man is not his father's son.

-

_Why are you doing this, Coward?_

Blackwood pushes him up against the dirty wall of the alleyway, Coward grabs at his hair and kisses him again. The moon is burning in the sky, full and fat and they scrabble at each other like lunatics, grasping, biting, tearing.

The question echoes in his head; this was not part of his plan, so why. Why, why, why.

 _Because I didn't know who he was,_ Coward answers himself.

Who, who, who. The word is the hoot of an owl, the baying of a wolfhound, they are fighting with each other like dogs. Coward digs his nails into the flesh of Henry's collar with an appetite to scrape bone. He snaps at Henry's tongue with his teeth.

Henry slams his head so hard against the wall that the world implodes around him; his ears are ringing, head sown up in a murky hood of pain. He rebounds, collapses forward and hooks his arms around Henry's neck to stop his fall.

-

"Henry Blackwood," Edward says, over enunciating each syllable as though he's chewing on something unpleasant. " _Really?_ "

Coward schools his features into neutrality, pasting a bland smile over his irritation though it ekes out of him in other ways, the tapping of his toes inside his shoes; the way he fiddles with the loose button on his left shirt sleeve.

"I'm afraid I don't follow," he says.

"You begged off our appointment to lunch with Blackwood, Coward."

Coward snorts, waves his hand to shoo the idea away.

"And don't bother trying to deny it. Jennings saw you coming out of that godforsaken little pit on Martingdale."

"Why on earth would I bother denying it." Coward rolls his eyes. "Are you hurt?"

"You know his reputation."

Edward has gone very pink, he spits the last word so forcefully it's practically garbled into senseless indignation. Coward strides over to the window of his former classmate's receving room and places his palms down flat on the ledge. The street outside is busy with people, nameless, faceless, unimportant. Coward smiles a small, private smile to himself and then turns around.

"London is awfully dull this time of year," he says.

He holds Edward's gaze as he makes the comment, watches with satisfaction the small flinch of hurt that passes over his friend's face.

"His family have no land you know," Edward says, sullenly, then snaps. "They say his mother was a whore and-"

Coward finishes for him. "His father was forced to marry her to avoid a scandal. Ah, yes, and for once the rumours are entirely correct."

"You're degrading your station associating with someone like him."

Coward laughs.

-

His father is raving at the shadows again. Coward presses his hands against his ears and then gives up and lets the noise wash over him. It could be a river babbling, wind passing through the trees. Upstairs, something loud topples to the floor with a bang that shakes dust from the ceiling.

Coward has been the man of the house for a long time. His father's eventual death will mean he gains a title, but little else that is not already his. It's hardly worth the trouble of finding a suitable pillow to hold over his face.

 _You're so like your father,_ his mother says, wrapping her arms around him. _He was a great man._

His mother's touch falls over him like a net of spiderweb, glancing, delicate, _everywhere_. He is choking on the scent of dead flowers. He is staring at the corner where his father is crouched, grinning, insane.

He is staring in the mirror at the veins in his bloodshot eyes, at the blood that is his birthright and carries all the inheritance of a Coward with it.

He is laying in bed with Henry and everything is still.

Everything is beautiful.

-

Henry has very little money, neither of the men he might call father have any interest in supplying an allowance to such a son and after a while, Coward realizes he is keeping Henry. Paying for clothes, paying for lodgings, carefully and secretly precipitating his advance in society.

It's amusing to watch how Henry chafes at his new role at first. He has been condemned all his life as something abominable and has in turn, rejected a world that closed its doors to him before he was old enough to know which hand to hold his fork in.

Coward is unsure where the lighthouse lamp of his plan has vanished to. It has been snuffed out by their shadows, dancing together. There was a noise, in his head, that has fallen silent. His mother told him something important once, about discipline, about . . .

But Coward exercises discipline daily and all of it upon Henry. They are building new plans together. On the map, the world is spread paper thin and Henry's eyes track lines of latitude and longitude, their intersections making the right angles of the squares of a chess board. The parceling of lands, peoples, territory.

Coward cuts Henry's hair. It is not in fashion. It is the clipping of his dog's ears to make him appear more fearsome. They pick out the coat together, Henry is growing to love the role of a Lord now he sees the showmanship, the magic in the power of this disguise.

When they stand before the mirror, Coward places his hands around Henry's throat, his fingertips barely touching.

Henry exhales, lowers his eyes. Coward's fingers do not tighten.


End file.
